Do you think jesus christ existed

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According to New Testament scholar James Dunn, nearly all modern scholars consider the baptism of Jesus and his crucifixion to be historically certain. He states that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent" and "rank so high on the 'almost impossible to doubt or deny' scale of historical facts" that they are often the starting points for the study of the historical Jesus.

*Some people hate Wikipedia almost as much as the Bible, but it's not a bad place to start. The quote is 10 years old, and I haven't yet tracked down what constitutes "nearly all" modern scholars in this case.

As Morgan pointed out, not all scholars agree on the statement above. Even if there were consensus on only those two points (baptism and crucifixion), that still leaves a world of doubt about what might have happened before and after crucifixion -- kinda the important bits.

As someone elsewhere on the web put it: you don't need to know whether or not L. Ron Hubbard existed to conclude that Scientology is a load of crap. (My tolerance only goes so far.)

I think the possibility of a historical man who who lived and was crucified (most likely framed) is certainly there. The possibility of his existence and any future evidence that he merely existed does not change my conviction as an atheist. That would take much more.